Feast the Winter Away

Why not a Recipe?

Potato Leek Soup:
(Serves 1 bachelor for approximately 1 week's worth of dinners)

Ingredients
3-4 Large Leeks
2 lbs. potatoes (peeled, or leave the skins on if you're rugged and manly)
4 cups chicken (or vegetable stock)
2 Tbsp. butter
Marjoram
Thyme
Parsley
1 cup lentils
1 clove of garlic
Salt and Pepper
Your favorite hot sauce (optional)
Cheese (optional)

Making the Magic Happen:

1. Wash your leeks and cut off all but the white and light green parts. Cut this up into small-ish pieces (I just chop my way down the stock, making little leek discs)
2. Toss these, along with the butter) in a big pot on low heat and let them simmer for 10 minutes. 
3. While that's going on wash and cut up your potatoes. Big chunks or small are fine, they'll get more attention later. 
4. Once everything is smelling super yummy add your stock and potatoes, bring everything to a boil and then let it simmer for 20 minutes.
5. I suppose you could probably cook the lentils in the same pot, but I choose to use my rice cooker. You can either cook them in two cups of water or stock. The garlic clove goes in there too, chopped up. 
6. Once your soup is nice a simmery you gotta blend up them 'tatoes a bit. I have an awesome immersion blender for this. If you don't have one you can scoop out about half the soup into your regular blender and give it a whirl. This is probably a good reason to cook the lentils separately and add them to the post-blending mix.
7. Add a couple teaspoons of parsley and a zesty pinch of Marjoram and Thyme. Salt and pepper to your liking as well.
8. My move is to add the hot sauce, lentils and cheese to my bowl when I serve it up, but you can experiment and find the way that works best for you.
9. Feast on this spectacular soup (ideally in flannel) and feel extra manly.